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A panel of academics and activists will make critical interventions on sexualities and approaches to LGBT activism in and across the MENA. Specifically, by foregrounding voices from the region and its diaspora, this lecture pushes to challenge debates and discussions that sometimes look in on the region from the outside. 

Mehammed Mack is Associate Professor of French Studies at Smith College. He earned his doctorate in French and comparative literature from Columbia University, where he completed a dissertation titled "Immigration and Sexual Citizenship: Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Contemporary France." His first book, Sexagon: Muslims, France, and the Sexualization of National Culture, was released from Fordham University Press in January 2017. 

Cenk Özbay is Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Sociology at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey. He holds a PhD from University of Southern California. His first book 'Queering Sexualities in Turkey. Gay Men, Male Prostitutes and the City' was released from I.B. Tauris in July 2017.  

Roula Seghaier is a queer feminist writer, novelist, and translator. She is the managing editor of Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research based in Beirut and a co-founder of Intersectional Knowledge Publishers.

Silvia Quattrini has been a member of the organising team of Chouftouhonna, the International Art Festival of Tunis, since 2016. Silvia is also the Middle East and North Africa Programmes Coordinator for Minority Rights Group International and a professional translator. 

Hakan Seckinelgin is Associate Professor (Reader) in the Department of Social Policy at LSE. His work focuses on both the epistemology and politics of international social policy by engaging with people’s lives in different contexts. He is the editor in Chief of Journal of Civil Society.

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